On a spring morning in 1861, two men from the same border-state soil — one raised in a log cabin, the other on a cotton plantation — took command of a nation tearing itself apart. Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis had almost nothing in common except the size of the burden now on their shoulders.Lincoln vs Davis tells the Civil War as it was actually fought: not as one story, but as two. Chapter by chapter, this parallel history moves between the White House and the Confe...

Running a business was supposed to give you freedom. Instead, most days disappear into a blur of decisions, fires to put out, and a to-do list that never gets shorter.You are managing everything, coordinating the team, piecing together advice from every direction, and somehow the strategic thinking that would actually move things forward keeps getting pushed to "later."John Vance has lived this. He launched his firm at twenty-eight...

An in-depth analysis of machine vibration in rotating machineryWhether it's a compressor on an offshore platform, a turbocharger in a truck or automobile, or a turbine in a jet airplane, rotating machinery is the driving force behind almost anything that produces or uses energy. Counted on daily to perform any number of vital societal tasks, turbomachinery uses high rotational speeds to produce amazing amounts of power efficiently. The key to increasing its longevi...

Bond reluctantly finds himself recruited into a dangerous mission involving an equally dangerous and treacherous alliance of agents from the CIA, the KGB, and Israel’s Mossad. The team dubbed “Icebreaker” waste no time double crossing each other, as they try to root out the leader of the murderous National Socialist Action Army, Count Konrad von Gloda, a one time SS officer, who now perceives himself as the New Adolf Hitler.

James Bond is on a mission that will become an obsession. It starts the night Flight 229 is torn apart at Washington airport, killing 435 passengers. But the victim who matters to Bond is the Principessa Sukie Tempesta: once his lover, still his friend.The search for Sukie’s killers will turn out to be the most complex and demanding assignment of Bond’s career. Across continents and through ever-changing labyrinths of evil, he follows the traces of clues into the center of a fanati...

The history of philosophy has been a succession of predictably tragic or comical palliatives for human disquiet. Thinkers from Spinoza to Berdyaev have pursued the perennial questions of how to be happy, how to be good, how to be loved, and how to live in a world of change and loss. But perhaps we can learn more from cats—the animal that has most captured our imagination—than from the great thinkers of the world.In Feline Philosophy, the philosopher John Gray discovers in ...

“Take care 007. Take special care. The continent’s a hotbed of villainy these days and you can never be too careful.”Bond was supposed to be on leave. But SPECTRE leader Tamil Rahani, dying from injuries suffered at Bond’s hand, is determined to make it the holiday to die for. With a price on his head, Bond must evade the world’s greatest assassins in a ruthless game of cat-and-mouse across Europe, while trying to save the lives of the two women who matter to him most, his...

When the body of a mysterious woman is found to be carrying the phone number of James Bond, Bond is called in by M to help the investigation. But before he can even reach headquarters he is nearly run off the road in a high-speed motorway chase. Someone wants Bond dead.Then Bond discovers that the woman was a member of a cult society known as “The Meek Ones,” with murky links to a wealthy arms dealer. Soon, hideous acts of terrorism begin to roll out across Britain and Bond finds h...

Next to the Bible, The Pilgrim’s Progress has probably been more widely read than any other book in the English language, and rightfully so. It is considered by many critics to be the greatest allegory in any language. And to think that it was written by a jailed tinker who received very little formal education.This classic allegory tells of a Christian’s epic journey toward heaven and the many temptations and distractions he encounters along the way. With a burden on his ...

Two female agents of Operation Cream Cake—double agents and honey traps against the KGB—are murdered. Bond must find the others and conduct them to safety before they meet a similar fate.In a race against time, Bond travels to Ireland and the KGB is soon on the scene. But all is not as it seems and soon Bond finds he needs all his wits to negotiate a labyrinth of double-crossing that is to lead him to a bewildering showdown in a remote corner of the Kowloon province of Hong Kong, w...

“People notice things and word around Whitehall is that Commander Bond is living a shade dangerously—gambling, the new Bentley, er…ladies, money changing hands.…”Following scandal and his shock resignation from Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, James Bond becomes a gun for hire; able, and willing, to sell his lethal skills to the highest bidder. And SPECTRE, it seems, are eager to have the disgraced British super spy on their payroll.But before he can be fully...

In this tantalizing tale of Victorian ghost stories and family secrets, timid, solitary librarian Gerard Freeman lives for just two things: his elusive pen pal Alice and a story he found hidden in his mother's drawer years ago. Written by his great-grandmother Viola, it hints at his mother's role in a sinister crime. As he discovers more of Viola's chilling tales, he realizes that they might hold the key to finding Alice and unveiling his family's mystery—or will they bring about his untim...